“I…I…”
Glancing over, he could see that, though she might not have actually known about it, she at least suspected something had happened to Anthony.
“They’re going to want to know all about you and your buddies Aaron and Ryan.”
“Hey, they’re not my friends.”
Logan shrugged. “But you were working with them.”
She said nothing, confirming he was right.
They passed the transition to the 101 and kept going north.
“What happened to Elyse?”
More silence. He was about to ask again when she finally spoke. “They took her.”
“
“I don’t know exactly. Aaron, I guess. A few others. I wasn’t there.”
“When did it happen?”
“Monday night. When she was with…Anthony.”
That answered that. “Where were they taking her?”
“I have no idea.”
He said nothing.
“Seriously,” she said. “I don’t know. I was just trying to make some extra money, that’s all.”
“You need to tell me what happened. Everything.”
She moaned loudly, as if it would be too painful for her to speak. But then she said, “Look, I got myself into some trouble, all right?”
“What kind of trouble?”
She paused, then said, “I took some money. A lot. Ten grand. Well, a lot to me, anyway. I didn’t think it was a lot to them. Thought I was being clever, taking a little here and there. But I needed the cash more than they did, you know?”
“More then who did?”
“The company I worked for. H. Wick Medical Supplies. I worked in accounts payable. Just a clerk, processing invoices. One day I came in and these lawyers were waiting for me in the conference room. They laid out copies of all the phony invoices I’d passed through. Said they were going to have me arrested.”
“Did they?”
She shook her head. “I was fired on the spot, and I spent the next two weeks waiting at home for the police to show up. Only instead of the police, this other guy knocks on my door. Totally professional looking, know what I mean? Expensive suit and nice shoes.”
“Was he from your former employer?”
“No.”
“The law firm?”
“He could have been, but he never said. He just gave me his name, Mr. Andrews, and that was it.”
“What did he want?”
“He told me he knew what I’d done, and said that if my old company filed charges there was no chance I would avoid going to prison for at least a couple of years. Then he told me it was possible he might be able to take care of things, if I was interested.” She paused. “I have a cousin who went to prison. He wasn’t the same when he was released. It changed him. Hollowed him out. I was scared to death that would happen to me. So, why wouldn’t I be interested?”
“And in exchange for this?”
She hesitated. “He wanted me to do something.”
“Set Elyse up.”
“No. No, not at all. I mean, I guess that’s what he really wanted, but that’s not how it was presented to me.”
Logan waited.
“Mr. Andrews said all I had to do was move in with some girls in Westchester, and keep an eye on one of them while pretending to be a student.”
“Elyse?”
“Yeah.”
“Did he tell you why he wanted you to keep an eye on her?”
“Not exactly. He just implied that she might have been involved in something she shouldn’t have been. You know, kind of like what I had been doing.”
“What did you think this ‘something’ was?”
